Anti-Discriminatory Practice: Pedagogical Struggles and Challenges

Correspondence to Narda Razack, Assistant Professor/Field Education Coordinator, School of Social Work, Atkinson College, York University, 4700 Keele St., North York, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada. E.mail: nrazack{at}yorku.ca Summary Transnational alliances and changing global realities have resultedin a proliferation of material relating to diversity and socialwork practice. More recently the focus has rested on anti-oppressionand multicultural social work. Although there is growing acceptanceof the need to be sensitive to diverse populations, the struggleoften lies in pedagogical and practice considerations. Coursesdealing with oppression have emerged and the emphasis has beento encourage student and teacher to examine their own biasesand understand their ethnicity and culture while seeking todevelop a framework for sensitive practice. Issues relatingto power and subjugation are highlighted along with an understandingof history and present realities. Pedagogical and practice strugglesneed to be addressed on a consistent basis to ensure that theslippage towards a more didactic approach is not adopted inorder to avoid dealing with sensitive material and issues. This article represents a synthesis of my experiences of developinga half credit course on anti-discriminatory practice and teachingit over a period of five terms. The guidelines and approachesused for teaching this course include journals, reflective papers,coalition groups and small group discussions. These approachesare discussed, together with an examination of the locationand struggles of staff and students, and ongoing challengesto effect social knowledge production that is premised on ananti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive framework for practice.Excerpts from student journals, my observations, and feedbackfrom student evaluations are utilised to promote a criticalreflection of pedagogical and practice concerns necessary forsustaining an anti-oppression framework for social work practice. The ways in which groups, individuals, and ideas come to bemarginalized in a given culture, society, and/or place has muchto do with what is considered to be knowledge and who is consideredto possess it, who is perceived as knower and who is known (Edgerton,1993, p. 222). Curricula are revised but rarely transformed from the insideout (McGee, 1993, p. 281).